Results round-up

AIM-listed Tristel, a manufacturer of infection prevention products, increased turnover while it continues to expand globally, particularly in North America.

For the year ended 30 June, turnover rose 12% to £17.1m, compared to the previous year, which was ahead of market expectations.

Overseas sales were up 22% to £6.7m, which represented 39% of total sales, up from 36% last year, or a 25% increase in constant currency. The company expects global sales growth to remain in the range of 10% to 15% over the medium term.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), before share based payments, rose 26% to £4.3, while adjusted EBITDA increased about 9% to £3.7m.

Pre-tax profit, before share based payments, climbed 27% to £3.3m as unadjusted pre-tax profit remained flat at £2.6m.

During the year, the company gained approval from 25 overseas regulatory bodies in seven countries.

The company invested £170,000 on product development and testing and £120,000 on patenting in order to protect our intellectual property, both of which are held in intangible assets, while £340,000 was invested in regulatory approval programmes and £130,000 for initiatives to enter the US market in 2014.

Tristel, which remains debt free, had net cash of £5.7m, down 42.5%.

AIM-listed producer Applied Graphene Materials’ revenue increased as it made “substantial progress” during the year with its graphene products.

For the year ended 31 July, revenue rose 20% to £300,000, compared to last year.

The loss from earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation widened by 7.6% to £4.2m, while the loss for profit before tax, and amortisation also widened by 10.2% to £4.3m.

Loss before tax increased by 12.5% to £4.5m.

Cash at bank rose about 64% to £7.7m.

The loss for diluted earnings per share narrowed to 22p from 22.9p last year, while the loss for adjusted diluted earnings per share also fell to 20.8p from 22.4p.

During the year the first production order was received from Century Composites for the company’s graphene products and accelerated the product development programme with James Briggs, a consumer chemicals manufacturer, for an expected product launch in early 2017.

The company launched a new collaboration project with paint supplier Sherwin-Williams Protective & Marine Coatings, with revenue likely to be small during next year, the company said the relationship has the “potential to increase to volumes” to develop additional production capacity.

Over 120kg of graphene dispersions were supplied to customers during the year in over 170 evaluation samples.

The company, which was spun-out from Durham University, said it was progressing on production capacity expansion on a modular basis with the first phase commissioned and operational.

It gained approval for the manufacturing process patent from US Patent Office.

In January the company completed a placing and open offer raising £8.5m.

Chief executive Jon Mabbitt said the company made “substantial” progress during the year towards commercial adoption of its graphene in target markets.

Chief executive Paul Swinney said: "We made very solid progress during the year. International expansion continues to drive revenue growth and we are succeeding in increasing profit margins, even whilst investing in new products and opening up new geographical markets, including North America.

"The progress we are making with the United States Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency, and Canada's Health Protection Branch, is in line with the North American business plan we are developing."

Basic earnings per share, before share based payments, rose 20% to 6.62p.

The company declared a dividend for the full year of 6.33p, an 11% increase, which included a special dividend of 3p per share.